Again, neither of them spoke.
It seems to me I have every reason to be angry, she then said, smiling again.
Hubert nodded and was a little surprised at his willingness to accept the blame.
How did you find me? Did Arno say something?
Hubert said it had been pure chance, he had seen her picture on the hotel notice board. I’m doing another exhibition at the cultural center.
I know, said Jill. I saw the article in the paper, though it didn’t tell me much.
Me either, said Hubert. It’s all so long ago, I can hardly remember.
I suppose it was my idea to have you back, said Jill. I’m on the committee that runs the cultural center. My last connection to the arts.
Why didn’t you get in touch? he asked.
Jill made a face. You made it pretty clear last time that you weren’t interested in me.
My wife left me, said Hubert.
Jill didn’t respond and asked instead what he was planning to show. Hubert shrugged. He laughed uncertainly. Suddenly Jill stood up, finished her spritzer, and said she had to go back to work.
Come and have dinner sometime. Are you free on Sunday?
I’m always free, he said.
Then come and meet me here at six.
She bent down, kissed him on the cheek, and disappeared.
There was a knock on the door, Hubert was still in bed. It’s me, said Arno, can we talk?
I’ll come down, said Hubert.
He waited for the footfall of the director to disappear, then he went to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, he was standing in front of Arno’s desk like a naughty pupil told to see the principal. Do you need anything? asked Arno. Is there some way I can help …
Hubert lied that he had an idea but wasn’t able to say anything specific about it.
We’re under a certain amount of pressure here, said Arno, some local politicians resent us, and we need proof that we’re doing good work. It’s important that the show be a success.
I’ll keep you posted, said Hubert
Just do something, said Arno. Anything, so long as we don’t have bare walls in three weeks.
Hubert breakfasted in the hotel. Then he got the password for the WLAN and Googled Gillian’s name. A couple hundred mentions came up, but almost all of them seemed to be about her former work in TV. When he put Jill for Gillian, there were fewer than a dozen results, and they all had to do with her work in the vacation club.
The opening of the graduation show at the art college was scheduled for Friday. Hubert had promised Nina and the others he would be there, but he was just on his way out of the cultural center when he saw on the door a large black poster with Carta Alba/Carte Blanche on it, his name, and the dates of the show. The opening was in exactly three weeks, on June 25. He decided not to drive down into the valley and instead went to the hotel and sat in the lobby. He wrote Nina an apologetic e-mail. He was under pressure, didn’t know what to do, couldn’t get away. He promised to come down in the next week or two to take a look at her work.
When he drove down to the village later on to buy food, he saw the poster for his exhibition in some of the shop windows. It felt as though Arno was making fun of him. He spent the evening in the hotel lobby, aimlessly surfing the Web.
On Saturday morning, Hubert called Astrid. She asked how he was doing and whether the show was coming together. He replied evasively. They talked about a few practical matters, then Astrid asked if she and Lukas should come up and see him. Maybe Rolf would come too. Hubert said it wasn’t a good time, he needed to concentrate on what he was doing. Then he asked to talk to Lukas and asked him what he was doing, but the boy was pretty monosyllabic and soon hung up.
All Sunday Hubert was nervous. He had crazy ideas about what he might do for the show, he thought about unpacking his old slides, projecting them on the walls or magnifying them, the whole series as a sort of illustrated romance. He could cut bits out of them, blow up certain details till they became unrecognizable. Or take pictures of himself, naked or clothed, doing the same things he had painted the women doing, as an ironic commentary on his earlier exhibition. Or he could do the thing he thought about doing before, make portraits of hotel guests. Or he could start a herbarium, paint with natural materials, make a stone circle, some reference to the power places. He even briefly considered a performance, though that really wasn’t his thing. None of it interested him.
In the afternoon, he took himself to the hotel spa. At six he asked at reception for Jill. He was told she would be on her way, but it was another ten minutes before she appeared in the lobby.
We can take my car, she said, leaving the hotel almost at a run.
She had a red Twingo, the backseat was a jumble of papers and clothes. Jill drove fast up the narrow road and over the new bridge.
Don’t you live in the village, then? asked Hubert.
Just outside, said Jill, it’s not far.
Five minutes later, she drew up outside a 1950s vacation house.
It’s not a thing of beauty, she said, but it belongs to my parents, so there’s no rent to pay.
How long have you been living here? asked Hubert.
Six years. I moved up here right after the accident.
Hubert said he had read something about that in a magazine, what had happened.
Jill climbed out. While they were still standing in front of the house, she explained rapidly that her husband had been drunk, had hit a deer, and died.
I was pretty badly hurt. My nose was more or less gone, but they built me another one that’s almost the same. It took over three years and lots of operations before it looked all right. Come in. Do you want a tour?
She showed him around and talked about the oil-fired central heating that would have to be replaced sometime, and the fact that they could do a roof conversion if they ever needed more space. The décor looked impersonal, perhaps because a lot of the furniture was old and didn’t really belong, as though its useful life had been spent somewhere else, and it was here in semiretirement. On the walls were a couple of calendar photos of Engadin landscapes, which Jill certainly wouldn’t have chosen. The magnificent landscape outside reappeared inside, in smaller, faded versions. On the dining table was a thick mustard yellow cloth, with a wrought iron ashtray on it. The air smelled of cold cigarette smoke.
They sat at a little granite table in the garden, in the middle of a flower meadow ringed by tall shrubbery. The sun hadn’t gone yet, but the light was changing, and large flecks of shade were wandering over the facing slopes.
I get properly snowed in here sometimes, said Jill. I’ve more or less got used to the mountains, but the winters are very long here.
How on earth did you wind up doing this vacation club thing? asked Hubert.
I had to do something, said Jill. I couldn’t go back in front of the camera, and I didn’t want to retreat into editorial. I came here because I wanted to recuperate for a while, then I saw a job ad and applied. At first I was working with children. The good thing is that ninety-nine percent of our guests are from Germany. No one recognized me. My boss was the only one who knew I’d once worked in TV. I told everyone who wanted to hear about it about the accident, and after that people no longer asked. Anyway, my nose kept looking better after each operation. Once I had settled, there was an opening in events, and my boss offered me the job.
And what do you do there? asked Hubert.
We put on an event every other evening, plays, musicals, sing-alongs. I’m also responsible for sports and fitness, I draw up schedules, look after my team. And I’m very often out with guests, we go on hikes together, I play games with them, sometimes do a little bit of acting. I just about have enough talent for the kind of things we put on. Tomorrow we’re doing Love Between Valley and Peak, you can come if you like, I’ll save you a seat. I’m playing the farmer’s ugly daughter.